KINGDOM OF GOD
Instead, the church must embrace and embody a new narrative driven by Kingdom concerns instead of church issues.
But if we respond to Jesus’ call to live as Kingdom agents everywhere we go , we will experience the joy of seeing God at work. Once you’ve witnessed a few resurrections, everything else pales in comparison!
most of what God does happens outside the church. The church has a vital role to play, but the church is not the center of the action.
Christianity’s greatest period of vulnerability and political weakness was the time of its most explosive growth. It became a magnet to others as well as a model of compassion. Likewise, rather than lecturing the world, we need to show a different and better way to live in the world, which includes seeking, as the prophet Jeremiah described it, “the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile” (Jer. 29:7). This view of power places average Christians on the mainstage of cultural influence. The loss of political sway in some areas empowers the everyday example of believers
“Apocalyptic and hysterical rhetoric is inappropriate for people who are children of the King,” James Forsyth, senior pastor at McLean Presbyterian Church, told us. “Christians should not be characterized by white knuckles of fear and terror.” God’s kingdom has a set of values that should shape us and instill a sense of mission; but God’s purposes ultimately don’t hinge on us. We can rest in the knowledge that God is in control and that things will unfold according to his will and ways.
If we understand this moment of cultural weakness in the right way—if we show joy and grace, serenity and hope, even while traveling on roads marked by difficulty—this moment can turn out to be not a calamity but a greater and grander stage for the true, enduring, and life-giving message of the gospel.
We want to use the time in church to prepare for Kingdom of God work out there. The end all be all of church is not to gather members, to save some one and feel like we are finished. But to prepare kingdom agents for working in the world. Disciple making prepares us for doing some awesome in the world outside of the church. It's tough for us to hear that, because we worry that our own church is in such need. To focus outside seems like neglect.
Jesus taught us to pray for the Kingdom to come. We must keep working on that possibility.
This hymn, by Carolyn Winfrey Gillette played a part in the pastoral prayer this Sunday as we prayed for the victims and their families who were in Paris for the destruction of so many.
O God, Our Words Cannot Express
ST. ANNE CM ("Our God, Our Help in Ages Past") (MIDI)
O God, our words cannot express
The pain we feel this day.
Enraged, uncertain, we confess
Our need to bow and pray.
We grieve for all who Please their lives...
And for each injured one.
We pray for children, husbands, wives
Whose grief has just begun.
O Lord, we're called to offer prayer
For all our leaders, too.
May they, amid such great despair,
Be wise in all they do.
We trust your mercy and your grace;
In you we will not fear!
May peace and justice now embrace!
Be with your people here!
I
Tune: Attr. William Croft, 1708.
Text: Copyright © 2001 by Carolyn Winfrey Gillette.
Email: bcgillette@comcast.net Web site: www.carolynshymns.com
Our Bosses
who we are influenced by, who shapes our behavior, who do we try to emulate, who were the people we were trying to be like? Who do we take our cues from for how we act. When I was little I wanted to be Superman. When a teenager, I wanted to be like the jocks I saw who were able to have friends and date the cute girls. Later on it's others who I thought I should impress. But it's not supposed to be liike that, but we should emulate Jesus and the ways of the Kingdom.
The Church
Jesus started the church to help train disciples to work for the Kingdom of God. 3 times Jesus mentions 3 as assembly. 150 times Jesus talks about the Kingdom of God/Heaven. We have focused our efforts at the church, getting people to become members, to help people be comforted in times of trouble, to help make the building a good place. Even our own bosses and other pastors measure what we are doing well by the number of people in our pews, the size of our buildings and the amounts of our budget. We are even chastised if we aren't growing the numbers of members. Not much talk about Kingdom influences. The church should be the training ground for living the Monday through Saturday life in the kingdom and with kingdom values being shared with all others.
Parable of the Life-Saving Station This is a good story about what happens to many churches, they start off well and then grow comfortable as a club.

A Parable of a Lighthouse
On a dangerous seacoast where shipwrecks often occur there was a once a crude little life-saving station. The building was just a hut, and there was only one boat, but the few devoted members kept a constant watch over the sea, and with no thought for themselves, they went out day or night tirelessly searching for the lost.
Many lives were saved by this wonderful little station, so that it became famous. Some of those who were saved, and various others in the surrounding areas, wanted to become associated with the station and give of their time and money and effort for the support of its work. New boats were bought and new crews were trained. The little life-saving station grew.
Some of the new members of the life-saving station were unhappy that the building was so crude and so poorly equipped. They felt that a more comfortable place should be provided as the first refuge of those saved from the sea.
So they replaced the emergency cots with beds and put better furniture in an enlarged building. Now the life-saving station became a popular gathering place for its members, and they re-decorated it beautifully and furnished it as a sort of club.
Less of the members were now interested in going to sea on life-saving missions, so they hired life boat crews to do this work.
The mission of life-saving was still given lip-service but most were too busy or lacked the necessary commitment to take part in the life-saving activities personally.
About this time a large ship was wrecked off the coast, and the hired crews brought in boat loads of cold, wet, and half-drowned people.
They were dirty and sick, and some of them had black skin, and some spoke a strange language, and the beautiful new club was considerably messed up. So the property committee immediately had a shower house built outside the club where victims of shipwreck could be cleaned up before coming inside.
At the next meeting, there was a split in the club membership. Most of the members wanted to stop the club's life-saving activities as being unpleasant and a hindrance to the normal life pattern of the club.
But some members insisted that life-saving was their primary purpose and pointed out that they were still called a life-saving station. But they were finally voted down and told that if they wanted to save the life of all the various kinds of people who were shipwrecked in those waters, they could begin their own life-saving station down the coast. They did.
As the years went by, the new station experienced the same changes that had occurred in the old. They evolved into a club and yet another life-saving station was founded.
If you visit the seacoast today you will find a number of exclusive clubs along that shore. Shipwrecks are still frequent in those waters, only now most of the people drown.
Author unknown
Adapted by Steve Rudd
The Kingdom
we have for a long time emphasized just the church and it's needs, and we do have them. BUT
Jesus challenges us to work on developing our discipleship so we engage the world we live in with the influences of the Holy Spirit to bring about the Kingdom. For God so loved the World...
May we be blessed by John Wesley's teaching on engaging in a world we don't always agree with and learn that love should triumph over total consensus as these quotes instruct us.
We may not all agree on things, but we can all agree on love for one another is the most important thing.
Let us commit to growing in our faith so we can influence the world we live in to become more like the Kingdom of God.
